Halloween!!

What a fun Halloween we had. We were lucky enough to have my sister and her family up for the weekend to join in the festivities. The girls had a blast as usual and it was so nice to spend quality time with my sister and Mark.
Jamie and I put on the Halloween Party at Hannah's preschool for her class. It was a lot of fun. There are only 6 kids and they are all super sweet. We had a great time.
On Halloween Jamie and our neighbor, Mike, took all the girls trick or treating. I really thought Hannah would only do a couple houses like last year and come home but she stuck with them and covered the whole neighborhood. I stayed back and handed out candy. It was my first year not tagging along as they trick or treated. I was kind of bummed but it was fun seeing all the different costumes that came to the door.

Treat bags I made for the preschool party

Hannah's class

Snack time!

Arghhh!

My good friend Sarah and her daughter, Maggie, joined us for trick or treating downtown Valpo on Friday evening.

Yes, he is using a power tool for carving his pumpkin.

How happy does Max look here?

Mama, Hannah, Julia, Abby, Lauren and Daddy

Family Pictures

We recently had our family pictures taken by our awesome photographer, Jennifer Sherrick. She has done our pictures since Lauren was 3 years old and I am in awe every single session. She is amazing. If you live in the Indy area I highly recommend her.

www.jensherrickphotography.com/photography

Here are a couple of my fav's. Follow a link at the bottom to view the rest! Enjoy!

Click the link below to check out the rest of our family pics!

Moore Family Pictures!!

Loving the Pool

After a year of begging Daddy for a pool, he finally caved! And if you ask him I'm betting he would say he is glad he did. The pool didn't go in until the kids were back in school so we had no real plans to actually use the pool this year. We were stoked when the good Lord blessed us with an Indian Summer!!! We spent a good week and half in the pool every single day including a full weekend with weather in the 80's!!! We cannot wait for next summer!

Daddy went to the dive shop to get he and Lauren a mask and snorkel and some flippers for Lauren. They have both enjoyed him teaching her the basics of snorkeling.

Snorkeling together! <3

THANKS DADDY!!!!!

Hannah starts Preschool

The long awaited day arrived. Hannah's first day of preschool. We all did pretty well considering. I was full of mixed emotions. I was excited for Hannah. Excited for her to try something brand spanking new. She doesn't leave me, ever. We have never successfully dropped her off at the nursery or Sunday School at church. Nope, one of us always ends up in their with her to keep her from completely freaking out. We attempted childcare at the YMCA. Nope. Play dates? Only if mommy is attending as well. So, along with the excitement for her came the worry. I was worried about how she would feel. Would she be scared? worried? sad? All of the above? First thing she said when she woke up that day was "I'm not going." Oh boy. With some encouragement I got her in the bath tub and by the time she was getting out she was starting to come around. By the time we were leaving I was getting "Hurry Mama, we are gonna be late." On the 20 minute drive to preschool I could see the confidence fading a tad. The questions started coming. "Are you going to stay with me? Why aren't you staying with me? Just stay with me for 5 minutes." When we finally got there I was sure she would have climbed back into my womb had I let her. There were no tears, thank you Jesus. But I still wasn't sure how this was going to go. Thankfully the teacher is one of my very good friends. First thing she said when I walked in was "no tears." I said, "Look, if she doesn't cry, I won't cry but if she does I'm not leaving until she stops. So yes, today, I may not leave." Lucky for all of us, she never cried. After 10 minutes she unglued herself from me and stared coloring with her teacher. It helped that she already knew the teacher and it was a pretty small, quiet class. I walked out and closed the door. Turned around and snapped one last picture through the glass. There she was. I was bursting with happiness for her and dying inside at the same time. I walked through those very same doors taking Lauren to school with Hannah only a few weeks old. How could this be? Was this it? I looked right at Jamie and said through the tears, "I can't do this. We have to have one more baby." He hugged me and assured me we shouldn't rush into anything.

Hannah is loving going two days a week for a couple hours. She walks in with such confidence each day and talks about everything they did at school all week long. She has the teachers wrapped around her little finger. I couldn't ask for anything more.

First Day of Pre School

Finding her name

One last picture through the glass

All done!!

Miss Tina, Miss Karen and Miss Audrey

Second day!

Third day!

She had her first field trip to the Washington Park Zoo

Hannah and Miss Karen

She wasn't sure if she wanted to touch the goat or not.

End of Summer Party and The First Day of School

So hard to believe that summer is already over and school is back in session. We had an End of Summer Party for all the kids in the neighborhood. This is our second year doing this and it is a lot fun. This year we rented a bouncy castle and a water slide. I knew Hannah would never go down the water slide which is why I rented the bouncy castle. I was right.

Mmm... cupcakes!

Shaving cream fight! The kids favorite activity by far. I cleaned Wal-Mart out of Barbasol shaving cream at $1 a bottle! :)

Back on the slide to rinse off. They kept covering themselves in shaving cream and then going down the slide super fast.

Hannah just enjoyed covering herself in the shaving cream

Oops! Almost forgot to get a pic of Hannah's princess bouncy castle!

Back to school! First day was a success. After getting up at 10 every morning this summer (or later) I was not looking forward to getting Lauren up but she didn't do too bad considering. She requested her favorite for breakfast, bacon and eggs. It's always bacon and eggs or Special K. I have to say I do a silent cheer when she requests the Special K.

My big 3rd grader. How can this be? My little bug.

While Lauren was at school Hannah and I were busy making back to school cupcakes. I was sad to see Lauren go back to school but I thoroughly enjoyed having my one on one time with Hannah again. Bittersweet.